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Radiance
Later, when Daisy remembered that night, she could smell the scent of honeysuckle at the window and see the moon on the floorboards. But in her memories Keiko wasn’t bandaged: her face was broken down the middle, just like the moon. One half was pure and white, the other half mottled and porous. The unbroken side was as smooth as porcelain, terrifying in its brightness, but in every memory it was the pocked side that drew Daisy in. (From Radiance, p. 192)
It’s 1952. Eighteen-year-old Hiroshima survivor Keiko Kitigawa arrives in New York City for surgery to cut away the scar marring her lovely face. Sponsored by The Hiroshima Project, Keiko is expected to be a media darling, “The Hiroshima Maiden,” selected for her scarred beauty and for the talent she briefly revealed to Project doctors in Japan for putting words to the inexpressible horrors she has witnessed. But the Keiko who arrives in America does not perform as scripted, preferring to recall instead her grandfather’s dappled gardens and tales of trickster foxes. Frustrated by her recalcitrance, the Project presses Keiko’s suburban host mother, Daisy Lawrence, into duty, tasking her with drawing out the girl’s horrific story, the one they need for the media circuit. When Daisy reluctantly agrees, she must fight to enter Keiko’s sphere of intimacy, and is shocked by what she learns there.
Like Keiko, Daisy has a few surprises in store for the Project. Her gentle maternal character has been vouched for by her long-time friend Irene Day, the glamorous Manhattan women’s columnist who recruited her. But even Daisy is taken aback by what bubbles up from beneath her calm domestic existence in Riverside Meadows, drawn to the surface by Keiko’s presence. Life will never be the same.
Also deeply affected by Keiko’s stay is Daisy’s husband, Walter, a nearly extinguished literary light whose off-Broadway play once garnered critical acclaim. He has been fighting for years with a hopelessly unfinished manuscript, obsessing over the tragic story of a friend who fell victim to the turmoil of Stalinist Russia. But Walter is haunted by another event in his past, something that happened in the shadows of the McCarthy trials and that he has never divulged to his wife.
Keiko, bandaged after her surgery like the Invisible Man, becomes a conduit for secret grief. A barrage of letters and gifts from strangers arrive at their door. Riverside Meadows housewives, a photographer covering her story, and even a former Japanese-held POW heap their weightiest confidences upon her. Perhaps it is the force of her tragedy that pulls them in, or perhaps it is because her bandages make her seem like a blank receptacle for their own pain. Whatever the cause, Daisy finds it increasingly difficult to find the real Keiko beneath these burdens. But she will fight with all her strength to protect the girl, even at incalculable cost.
Set against the backdrops of the Atomic Age and McCarthyism, Radiance is a precise and nuanced rendition of an historic time, depicted through a highly intimate lens and driven by acts of great love, terrible betrayals and immense compassion.
It’s 1952. Eighteen-year-old Hiroshima survivor Keiko Kitigawa arrives in New York City for surgery to cut away the scar marring her lovely face. Sponsored by The Hiroshima Project, Keiko is expected to be a media darling, “The Hiroshima Maiden,” selected for her scarred beauty and for the talent she briefly revealed to Project doctors in Japan for putting words to the inexpressible horrors she has witnessed. But the Keiko who arrives in America does not perform as scripted, preferring to recall instead her grandfather’s dappled gardens and tales of trickster foxes. Frustrated by her recalcitrance, the Project presses Keiko’s suburban host mother, Daisy Lawrence, into duty, tasking her with drawing out the girl’s horrific story, the one they need for the media circuit. When Daisy reluctantly agrees, she must fight to enter Keiko’s sphere of intimacy, and is shocked by what she learns there.
Like Keiko, Daisy has a few surprises in store for the Project. Her gentle maternal character has been vouched for by her long-time friend Irene Day, the glamorous Manhattan women’s columnist who recruited her. But even Daisy is taken aback by what bubbles up from beneath her calm domestic existence in Riverside Meadows, drawn to the surface by Keiko’s presence. Life will never be the same.
Also deeply affected by Keiko’s stay is Daisy’s husband, Walter, a nearly extinguished literary light whose off-Broadway play once garnered critical acclaim. He has been fighting for years with a hopelessly unfinished manuscript, obsessing over the tragic story of a friend who fell victim to the turmoil of Stalinist Russia. But Walter is haunted by another event in his past, something that happened in the shadows of the McCarthy trials and that he has never divulged to his wife.
Keiko, bandaged after her surgery like the Invisible Man, becomes a conduit for secret grief. A barrage of letters and gifts from strangers arrive at their door. Riverside Meadows housewives, a photographer covering her story, and even a former Japanese-held POW heap their weightiest confidences upon her. Perhaps it is the force of her tragedy that pulls them in, or perhaps it is because her bandages make her seem like a blank receptacle for their own pain. Whatever the cause, Daisy finds it increasingly difficult to find the real Keiko beneath these burdens. But she will fight with all her strength to protect the girl, even at incalculable cost.
Set against the backdrops of the Atomic Age and McCarthyism, Radiance is a precise and nuanced rendition of an historic time, depicted through a highly intimate lens and driven by acts of great love, terrible betrayals and immense compassion.
336 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2007
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About the author
Shaena Lambert
7 books26 followersI started writing fiction in 1992, when my son was a toddler, a leap into the unknown, and frightening, as at that time I was a single mother. But with the help of an explorations grant from the Canada Council, I was able to keep writing. I have lived in Vancouver, Toronto, New York and the Okanagan, but for the last decade I have been back on the West Coast, in Vancouver, where many of my stories are set, living with my husband, Bob Penner, and my two (now grown ) children. I've written four books, Petra, Oh, My Darling , Radiance, and The Falling Woman, stories. My work has been nominated for the Danuta Gleed, Rogers Writers Trust, Ethel Wilson and Evergreen awards, Frank O'Connor Award for the Short Story and been published in Canada, the UK, Germany and Australia. I also teach writing on a freelance basis -- please visit my website, for thoughts on writiing.
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Displaying 1 - 29 of 29 reviews
February 23, 2014
I started by reading Shaena Lambert's short story collection The Falling Woman and was drawn nearly all the way through, an accomplishment by Lambert to snag this impatient reader. The emotional subtleties and ambiguities in Radiance were altogether heroic -- how easy it would have been for a writer to nudge the reader into "liking" the good guys, "disliking" the bad guys — but here there are no black-and-white characters in sight. The fox allegory, the story that Keiko tells to Daisy and retells to herself is perfect. The Japan of pre-Hiroshima reads (not that I have even been to Japan) as though Lambert herself had been Keiko, standing on her grandfather's rock, peeking over a fence, staying home from school that day, having lied to her mother about being sick ... when the plane flew over. What Keiko the child did and what she didn't do; what Keiko the eighteen-year-old does and doesn't do -- absolutely absorbing and haunting. Even Daisy, "Mrs Lawrence", the homestay mother, climbs great internal heights in this engrossing novel. The writing is clear, crisp, undazed and unfazed; never overwrought, and frequently intensely beautiful. A book to ponder for a long time.
November 21, 2023
Setting: New York, USA (1952) & Hiroshima, Japan (1945).
In 1945, teenage schoolgirl Keiko is exposed to the atomic blast in Hiroshima and suffers facial scarring.
In 1952, now 18 years old, Keiko lands in America as the first of the Hiroshima Maidens - brought to America for plastic surgery on her injured face and to take part in anti-nuclear campaigns. Her American host, Daisy, is tasked with looking after Keiko as she awaits her operation and also encouraging her to describe what happened to her when the bomb went off. But Keiko seems reluctant to open up to Daisy but is far more forthcoming with her husband, Walter, who writes scripts for radio programmes. Daisy gets the distinct impression that Keiko is not going to be as co-operative as she initially suggested she was going to be....
Against a background of the anti-Communist McCarthy Committees, which form part of story as the book progresses, this was an intriguing read with excellent characters and a quite unique storyline as Keiko is finally persuaded to tell of her experiences after the atom bomb exploded - 8.5/10.
In 1945, teenage schoolgirl Keiko is exposed to the atomic blast in Hiroshima and suffers facial scarring.
In 1952, now 18 years old, Keiko lands in America as the first of the Hiroshima Maidens - brought to America for plastic surgery on her injured face and to take part in anti-nuclear campaigns. Her American host, Daisy, is tasked with looking after Keiko as she awaits her operation and also encouraging her to describe what happened to her when the bomb went off. But Keiko seems reluctant to open up to Daisy but is far more forthcoming with her husband, Walter, who writes scripts for radio programmes. Daisy gets the distinct impression that Keiko is not going to be as co-operative as she initially suggested she was going to be....
Against a background of the anti-Communist McCarthy Committees, which form part of story as the book progresses, this was an intriguing read with excellent characters and a quite unique storyline as Keiko is finally persuaded to tell of her experiences after the atom bomb exploded - 8.5/10.
December 11, 2008
Wonderful read. Beautifully written. I thought the Ethel Wilson prize was going to come down to either this, or Mary Novik's Conceit. (And I'll bet it did.)
October 9, 2008
I bet on this book for the BC Ethel Wilson Book Prize this year. I lost the bet, but I'm still proud of my pick!
November 28, 2008
The whole time I was reading this book I kept hoping it would get better. After only 100 pages in I was already fighting to finish, telling myself that I would get more interesting, but I didn't. Well written? Sure. Engaging? Not so much.
On the cover they liken Lambert to the talents of Munro and Proulx, and I can see the comparison in the story telling. I had never read any Lambert before and the book was selected by my book club for the month of November. At the present we have yet to discuss the book, but I can tell you that I have few nice things to say.
It was just plain boring! I can see how this book would have been better as a short story, but as a 300+ page novel...well...zzzzz :(
On the cover they liken Lambert to the talents of Munro and Proulx, and I can see the comparison in the story telling. I had never read any Lambert before and the book was selected by my book club for the month of November. At the present we have yet to discuss the book, but I can tell you that I have few nice things to say.
It was just plain boring! I can see how this book would have been better as a short story, but as a 300+ page novel...well...zzzzz :(
January 29, 2010
Is about a Hiroshima victim who comes to the US in the early 50's to have scars removed. She lives with a "home mother" and is supposed to be made perfect by a TV doctor and then help to promote an anti-nuclear message. The Japanese girl is a very dislikable person and I found it hard to get into the story and then once absorbed she and most of the other lead characters were so unpleasant I had little interest in their lives.
December 2, 2012
It’s 1952 and New Jersey housewife Daisy Lawrence waits at Mitchell Air Force Base for the plane that brings 18-year-old Keiko Kitigawa from Japan. Daisy is hosting Keiko, who is no ordinary home stay guest but a Hiroshima Maiden – a survivor of the bomb, the recipient of free American plastic surgery to remove her scars, and a poster child for the anti-bomb movement that funded her trip. Once Keiko’s disfigurement has been repaired, the sponsors of The Hiroshima Project will take her on tour to give testimony of the bomb’s devastation.
Shaena Lambert has chosen a complex and unnerving period in American history for RADIANCE. Immediately following the Second World War, the United States is the most powerful nation in the world, with the most powerful weapon in the world. But the McCarthy Hearings make Americans doubt their country’s internal stability. Keiko’s arrival, only seven years after the end of the war, adds enough disruption to stir emotions to the surface in Daisy’s small world. Her neighbor, once a POW, resents Keiko’s presence. The Resident’s Committee wants to meet about the home stay situation, which Daisy did not discuss with them beforehand.
And then there is the Hiroshima Maiden herself, scarred yet beautiful, a vulnerable and passive canvas who engages the imaginations of the Americans around her. A young photographer sees his dead sister in Keiko and courts her. Daisy’s husband Walter finds himself telling Keiko things he’s never told Daisy. Irene, a social-climbing journalist who has attached herself to the Hiroshima Project, believes that Keiko is a cynic who understands perfectly the implications of speaking out against the bomb in exchange for surgery.
Daisy is not so sure. Keiko is formal and distant, but Daisy’s generous maternal instincts sense fear in the young woman, a reluctance to recite – and relive – memories of devastation and the deaths of her family. Daisy’s conviction that Keiko needs to back out of the publicity tour propels her from being an amiable and inoffensive homemaker to a determined, if ineffective, advocate for Keiko.
Keiko could so easily have been a grateful, cooperative character, but then Lambert’s tale would have been far too transparent. Who is being manipulated? What lies do we tell so that we can face ourselves? The Hiroshima Maiden reveals to us the people around her; she becomes a focal point for their guilt, righteousness, self-delusion and awkward truths. But we catch only glimpses of Keiko’s true feelings, layered between her own guilt, nightmares, and memories of the unspoiled Hiroshima of her childhood.
What I Learned About Writing from Reading This Book
I believed that for a metaphor to be effective, it had to run through the fabric of the novel, invisible but omnipresent. When I was writing my own novel, I had wanted to use a river as metaphor for memory, but ended up ripping it out. It was just too unsustainable trying to inject watery images everywhere.
[And OK, I just really, really wanted the chance to use “riparian” somewhere]
For me, the most revealing passages in the book were Keiko's recollections of childhood, especially her time with her grandfather who told ghost stories about bakemono, fox spirits. Maybe it’s because I’m Chinese, but I could not help gravitating to this metaphor of a shape-shifting creature, subject of countless folk tales.
In Asian ghost stories, the fox spirit usually takes on the form of a beautiful woman who tricks her way into marriage with a human husband; sometimes she even gives him children. Then one day, after years of apparent bliss, the fox spirit is unmasked, usually by an outsider. The consequences of the man’s relationship with the fox spirit depend on whether the spirit is evil or helpful – yet there is always a wistful sort of ambiguity about the fox spirit, even if it turns out to be evil. After all, she spent all those years playing the part of a devoted wife.
The challenge with the fox spirits metaphor is that it needs to cross cultures, to conjure up a world of meaning for non-Asians. But instead of bringing it up and offering context at every turn, I see now that setting up a metaphor can be entirely separate from how it is evoked.
Lambert confines mention of bakemono to the Hiroshima of Keiko’s memories: the shrine near their home guarded by twin fox statues, her grandfather's stories about fox spirits, how he could name all the species of foxes. Whether or not you are acquainted with Asian ghost stories, you understand these stories reside deeply within Keiko's being.
Thus when Keiko tells Daisy that her mother used to call her ‘little fox child’, she is signalling her unreliable nature to Daisy in the most obvious way possible for a Japanese, yet without revealing herself. And when the fox spirit manifests in America, it is only as a sound, the swish of an animal tail in her hospital room when Keiko hallucinates about her mother. It is a momentary delusion, but after this the fox spirit comes to mind, can’t help but come to mind in all its ambiguity, its true purpose hidden from humans as we realize that Keiko is remaking herself, transforming into the Hiroshima Maiden her sponsors want her to be.
Metaphor is so contextual and often specific to culture. If I had chosen to use fox spirits, it’s very likely I would been ineffective; I would have used fewer words while setting up that metaphor – simply because it’s so recognizable to me that it would feel heavy-handed to do more -- and clumsily tried to pull it more frequently into the narrative.
RADIANCE reinforces an important lesson: that when you are writing for a multi-cultural audience, you need to create references that are accessible, and at the same time, trust in your readers' intelligence to make the connection. In her novel, Lambert does this by ensuring we understand the personal significance bakemono carries for Keiko, even if we don’t grasp fully the nature of fox spirits. Then, delicately and deliberately, with just the flick of a ghostly tail, she sets the metaphor in motion.
Shaena was gracious enough to let me interview her (read here)
Shaena Lambert has chosen a complex and unnerving period in American history for RADIANCE. Immediately following the Second World War, the United States is the most powerful nation in the world, with the most powerful weapon in the world. But the McCarthy Hearings make Americans doubt their country’s internal stability. Keiko’s arrival, only seven years after the end of the war, adds enough disruption to stir emotions to the surface in Daisy’s small world. Her neighbor, once a POW, resents Keiko’s presence. The Resident’s Committee wants to meet about the home stay situation, which Daisy did not discuss with them beforehand.
And then there is the Hiroshima Maiden herself, scarred yet beautiful, a vulnerable and passive canvas who engages the imaginations of the Americans around her. A young photographer sees his dead sister in Keiko and courts her. Daisy’s husband Walter finds himself telling Keiko things he’s never told Daisy. Irene, a social-climbing journalist who has attached herself to the Hiroshima Project, believes that Keiko is a cynic who understands perfectly the implications of speaking out against the bomb in exchange for surgery.
Daisy is not so sure. Keiko is formal and distant, but Daisy’s generous maternal instincts sense fear in the young woman, a reluctance to recite – and relive – memories of devastation and the deaths of her family. Daisy’s conviction that Keiko needs to back out of the publicity tour propels her from being an amiable and inoffensive homemaker to a determined, if ineffective, advocate for Keiko.
Keiko could so easily have been a grateful, cooperative character, but then Lambert’s tale would have been far too transparent. Who is being manipulated? What lies do we tell so that we can face ourselves? The Hiroshima Maiden reveals to us the people around her; she becomes a focal point for their guilt, righteousness, self-delusion and awkward truths. But we catch only glimpses of Keiko’s true feelings, layered between her own guilt, nightmares, and memories of the unspoiled Hiroshima of her childhood.
What I Learned About Writing from Reading This Book
I believed that for a metaphor to be effective, it had to run through the fabric of the novel, invisible but omnipresent. When I was writing my own novel, I had wanted to use a river as metaphor for memory, but ended up ripping it out. It was just too unsustainable trying to inject watery images everywhere.
[And OK, I just really, really wanted the chance to use “riparian” somewhere]
For me, the most revealing passages in the book were Keiko's recollections of childhood, especially her time with her grandfather who told ghost stories about bakemono, fox spirits. Maybe it’s because I’m Chinese, but I could not help gravitating to this metaphor of a shape-shifting creature, subject of countless folk tales.
In Asian ghost stories, the fox spirit usually takes on the form of a beautiful woman who tricks her way into marriage with a human husband; sometimes she even gives him children. Then one day, after years of apparent bliss, the fox spirit is unmasked, usually by an outsider. The consequences of the man’s relationship with the fox spirit depend on whether the spirit is evil or helpful – yet there is always a wistful sort of ambiguity about the fox spirit, even if it turns out to be evil. After all, she spent all those years playing the part of a devoted wife.
The challenge with the fox spirits metaphor is that it needs to cross cultures, to conjure up a world of meaning for non-Asians. But instead of bringing it up and offering context at every turn, I see now that setting up a metaphor can be entirely separate from how it is evoked.
Lambert confines mention of bakemono to the Hiroshima of Keiko’s memories: the shrine near their home guarded by twin fox statues, her grandfather's stories about fox spirits, how he could name all the species of foxes. Whether or not you are acquainted with Asian ghost stories, you understand these stories reside deeply within Keiko's being.
Thus when Keiko tells Daisy that her mother used to call her ‘little fox child’, she is signalling her unreliable nature to Daisy in the most obvious way possible for a Japanese, yet without revealing herself. And when the fox spirit manifests in America, it is only as a sound, the swish of an animal tail in her hospital room when Keiko hallucinates about her mother. It is a momentary delusion, but after this the fox spirit comes to mind, can’t help but come to mind in all its ambiguity, its true purpose hidden from humans as we realize that Keiko is remaking herself, transforming into the Hiroshima Maiden her sponsors want her to be.
Metaphor is so contextual and often specific to culture. If I had chosen to use fox spirits, it’s very likely I would been ineffective; I would have used fewer words while setting up that metaphor – simply because it’s so recognizable to me that it would feel heavy-handed to do more -- and clumsily tried to pull it more frequently into the narrative.
RADIANCE reinforces an important lesson: that when you are writing for a multi-cultural audience, you need to create references that are accessible, and at the same time, trust in your readers' intelligence to make the connection. In her novel, Lambert does this by ensuring we understand the personal significance bakemono carries for Keiko, even if we don’t grasp fully the nature of fox spirits. Then, delicately and deliberately, with just the flick of a ghostly tail, she sets the metaphor in motion.
Shaena was gracious enough to let me interview her (read here)
July 3, 2020
Radiance by Shaena Lambert
Reviewed by Beth Coleman
Imagine you are a woman who has lost a child at birth. It’s whisked away. Years later you still long to see the child. Being a kind American housewife of 1952, with a lovable but boozy radio writer husband, and with a suave friend spearheading the ban-the-bomb movement you see a chance to help a child, an orphaned girl on the brink of adulthood, a Japanese girl, whose beautiful face has been hideously scarred in Hiroshima. She is coming to New York to receive free plastic surgery and become the poster girl for ban-the-bomb. You see a chance to be her host ‘mother. But you have no idea of what you are getting into.
This is the premise of Shaena Lambert’s wonderful novel, Radiance. The best of intentions of Daisy, the housewife, leads her into challenging emotional and political situations that involve her marriage, her suburban neighborhood, and her relationship with the enigmatic Keiko. Stereotypes are shattered, good causes do bad things, secrets are submerged and lies bubble under the surface. It is a novel about survival, insight and hope in difficult times and it is written with textured layers developing believable characters that resonate
Reviewed by Beth Coleman
Imagine you are a woman who has lost a child at birth. It’s whisked away. Years later you still long to see the child. Being a kind American housewife of 1952, with a lovable but boozy radio writer husband, and with a suave friend spearheading the ban-the-bomb movement you see a chance to help a child, an orphaned girl on the brink of adulthood, a Japanese girl, whose beautiful face has been hideously scarred in Hiroshima. She is coming to New York to receive free plastic surgery and become the poster girl for ban-the-bomb. You see a chance to be her host ‘mother. But you have no idea of what you are getting into.
This is the premise of Shaena Lambert’s wonderful novel, Radiance. The best of intentions of Daisy, the housewife, leads her into challenging emotional and political situations that involve her marriage, her suburban neighborhood, and her relationship with the enigmatic Keiko. Stereotypes are shattered, good causes do bad things, secrets are submerged and lies bubble under the surface. It is a novel about survival, insight and hope in difficult times and it is written with textured layers developing believable characters that resonate
December 19, 2017
I'm not a fan.
I had no issues with Daisy's character even if she was a little bland. Keiko annoyed me quite a bit. Her depiction rang a bit false. The story itself felt full of unimportant things. I liked the imagery but other than that I can't say I liked much else.
Overall, the novel was pretty bland and unmemorable.
I had no issues with Daisy's character even if she was a little bland. Keiko annoyed me quite a bit. Her depiction rang a bit false. The story itself felt full of unimportant things. I liked the imagery but other than that I can't say I liked much else.
Overall, the novel was pretty bland and unmemorable.
August 15, 2020
Writing as beautiful as a bonsai garden, characters that made me ache. Loved this book.
December 11, 2021
Pretty good book.
February 8, 2025
Started off well but then it got boring
June 17, 2025
Could not get interested. Took me 2 months to read and I have read 900 page books in two weeks.
August 21, 2013
Margaret Mary Parker aka Daisy, a suburban housewife in New York State commandeered by her erstwhile school friend , Irene Day, into looking after Keiko Kitigawa an eighteen year old Japanese Hiroshima maiden who came to the USA for surgery on her deformed face . Keiko was chosen to be given the opportunity of surgery as part of the Hiroshima Project headed by Mr. Atchity and Dr. Carey because she was a beautiful young woman who spoke excellent English and had the intelligence to recognise this was a way to settle in USA and leave behind a place where her mother, grandfather and neighbour had died. The uncle and aunt who were responsible for her didn't love her and she felt totally isolated. Also because she was racked with quilt (survival) and did not help a lady with a baby at the time of the bombing Keiko developed into a manipulative girl who wanted everything her own terms. As the story progresses you wonder whom is more manipulating -Keiko or the Project. In all of this childless Daisy gives her love and commitment to Keiko but all in vain.
The inhabitants of Riverside Meadows were great – they could be representative of any Residents Association in any part of the world. They all kept themselves to themselves until there was a possibility the outside world was going to turn their world upside down. Walter going to prison did it and Joan Palmer was the Lawrence’s defence and stopped the Residents Committee kicking them out of Riverside under the ‘grave misconduct clause’. Joan turned from enemy to friend, talking about Keiko and the Project, the snub by Keiko and the gathering of 800 people at Carnegie Hall who listened to Keiko and how afterwards she had sung with Paul Robson. None of this was shared with Daisy who poured so much of herself into the care of Keiko after her operation.
Trying to bring the event of 6th August 1945 to my attention was ill-conceived using the Hiroshima Maiden is the tool. The novel never really me to think there was any reason for Keiko to destroy, or at least try to destroy Daisy without some sort of half-unravelled life. Ultimately I didn’t get it. Hiroshima I got, the guts of the story I got, but put the two together and they remained two stories running in parallel.
The story unfolds as life does – with ethical issues speeding up the process only for it to de-accelerate when least expected. The dream that Daisy had for this girl to become a ‘daughter’ was unrealistic with Keiko having no relationship with her at all, always calling her Mrs Lawrence, never showing any warmth, no instinctive clutching for a person full of empathy and care. The reader was always trying to get some contact between Keiko and Daisy and that was why I finished the novel. It never came – perhaps that was the author’s intent.
The American characters seemed very real – even dear Tom the photographer and especially how I imagined 1950’s American sophisticate – Irene and home loving Daisy who was destined to remain childless. The real problem was with Keiko Kitigawa who I could only see as some sort of spectre, unreal, untouchable, uncontained. It felt as though you could walk right through her. She lied, she cheated, she manipulated as they all did but she didn’t seem real, not young or old, even getting Walter into jail was something she felt empowered to do.
Hiroshima’s Maiden was chosen by sponsors to come to the USA and have her disfigurement removed. Keiko seemed the ideal choice when she was examined by Dr. Carey and talked to by Mr.Atchity at the bomb Casualty Commission at the end of 1951. beautiful, good spoken English, eighteen, said all the right things to the men interviewing her, but she had her agenda , it seemed to get away from ‘survivors’ guilt, her aunt and uncle, her own conscience for not helping the woman with the child. The men also were not as they seemed, the great and the good who were prepared to prey on this young person‘s shattered life.
The story took me from March 1952 to December 1952, all about Keiko in America although details about Tom and Daisy continued until 1968. So where is the end? I guess it is the moment Keiko and Daisy meet for the last time near Irene’s apartment, just before Keiko goes on her tour after the Hydrogen Bomb Test on the Atoll in the Marshall Islands.
The inhabitants of Riverside Meadows were great – they could be representative of any Residents Association in any part of the world. They all kept themselves to themselves until there was a possibility the outside world was going to turn their world upside down. Walter going to prison did it and Joan Palmer was the Lawrence’s defence and stopped the Residents Committee kicking them out of Riverside under the ‘grave misconduct clause’. Joan turned from enemy to friend, talking about Keiko and the Project, the snub by Keiko and the gathering of 800 people at Carnegie Hall who listened to Keiko and how afterwards she had sung with Paul Robson. None of this was shared with Daisy who poured so much of herself into the care of Keiko after her operation.
Trying to bring the event of 6th August 1945 to my attention was ill-conceived using the Hiroshima Maiden is the tool. The novel never really me to think there was any reason for Keiko to destroy, or at least try to destroy Daisy without some sort of half-unravelled life. Ultimately I didn’t get it. Hiroshima I got, the guts of the story I got, but put the two together and they remained two stories running in parallel.
The story unfolds as life does – with ethical issues speeding up the process only for it to de-accelerate when least expected. The dream that Daisy had for this girl to become a ‘daughter’ was unrealistic with Keiko having no relationship with her at all, always calling her Mrs Lawrence, never showing any warmth, no instinctive clutching for a person full of empathy and care. The reader was always trying to get some contact between Keiko and Daisy and that was why I finished the novel. It never came – perhaps that was the author’s intent.
The American characters seemed very real – even dear Tom the photographer and especially how I imagined 1950’s American sophisticate – Irene and home loving Daisy who was destined to remain childless. The real problem was with Keiko Kitigawa who I could only see as some sort of spectre, unreal, untouchable, uncontained. It felt as though you could walk right through her. She lied, she cheated, she manipulated as they all did but she didn’t seem real, not young or old, even getting Walter into jail was something she felt empowered to do.
Hiroshima’s Maiden was chosen by sponsors to come to the USA and have her disfigurement removed. Keiko seemed the ideal choice when she was examined by Dr. Carey and talked to by Mr.Atchity at the bomb Casualty Commission at the end of 1951. beautiful, good spoken English, eighteen, said all the right things to the men interviewing her, but she had her agenda , it seemed to get away from ‘survivors’ guilt, her aunt and uncle, her own conscience for not helping the woman with the child. The men also were not as they seemed, the great and the good who were prepared to prey on this young person‘s shattered life.
The story took me from March 1952 to December 1952, all about Keiko in America although details about Tom and Daisy continued until 1968. So where is the end? I guess it is the moment Keiko and Daisy meet for the last time near Irene’s apartment, just before Keiko goes on her tour after the Hydrogen Bomb Test on the Atoll in the Marshall Islands.
February 12, 2017
I am glad to have read this book, but can not say it was an enjoyable read.
Radiance is the story of a Japanese girl Keiko with facial scaring and disfigurement due to Hiroshoma. She is chosen to be to be taken to America receive plastic surgery and become an ambassador for the anti nuclear lobbyist group. America in the early 1950's is a complicated time in history and this novel depicts that very well. The new subdivision of Riverside drive in a New York borough is folk getting on with getting on. Daisy and Walter are the home-stay parents for Keiko. The tension Keiko brings to the lives she is connected to is what the story is really about. She is the pawn in many of the characters narratives. It feels as if all the characters have narcissistic type ego's, in my experience there are always some who have more benevolence as their life force. I found this depressing and confusing trying to second guess the sub plots let alone the actual plot. This story lacked a central figure you could attach to and like, someone you could feel a loyalty too.
One of the reasons I like to write a review for each book I have read is it allows the story to settle before I begin my next one. The feeling that lingers after any read is distilled into my review and means I can start afresh. As I started this review I wrote the following paragraph; The topic tackled courageous and worthy. The real yin and yang of the two cultures colliding was done well, but for me there was something missing and try as I might I can't figure out what it was. It may be that none of the characters flaws were weighted toward the good of humanity, rather each person felt murky and a little grubby.
I then delved into the the plot and how it was presented. At that point I had the revelation - I actually didn't like any of the characters..........
So with that in mind I hesitate to recommend it, yet the writing is rather good.
Radiance is the story of a Japanese girl Keiko with facial scaring and disfigurement due to Hiroshoma. She is chosen to be to be taken to America receive plastic surgery and become an ambassador for the anti nuclear lobbyist group. America in the early 1950's is a complicated time in history and this novel depicts that very well. The new subdivision of Riverside drive in a New York borough is folk getting on with getting on. Daisy and Walter are the home-stay parents for Keiko. The tension Keiko brings to the lives she is connected to is what the story is really about. She is the pawn in many of the characters narratives. It feels as if all the characters have narcissistic type ego's, in my experience there are always some who have more benevolence as their life force. I found this depressing and confusing trying to second guess the sub plots let alone the actual plot. This story lacked a central figure you could attach to and like, someone you could feel a loyalty too.
One of the reasons I like to write a review for each book I have read is it allows the story to settle before I begin my next one. The feeling that lingers after any read is distilled into my review and means I can start afresh. As I started this review I wrote the following paragraph; The topic tackled courageous and worthy. The real yin and yang of the two cultures colliding was done well, but for me there was something missing and try as I might I can't figure out what it was. It may be that none of the characters flaws were weighted toward the good of humanity, rather each person felt murky and a little grubby.
I then delved into the the plot and how it was presented. At that point I had the revelation - I actually didn't like any of the characters..........
So with that in mind I hesitate to recommend it, yet the writing is rather good.
October 13, 2013
The more you call black white,and darkness light,the more truth just wiggles around and finds a way to get itself heard.Radiancep301
This statement,uttered by one of the major minor players near the end of the book,needs to be applied to the book itself. The truth is,this is a disturbing book on many levels.The subject matter,of course, is not an easy one,so that although it is fairly well written,and SL is able to transport us to the scene of the devestation so that our reactions are visceral,we are like the ghosts that haunt the Hiroshima Maiden,and our engagement is just as fragmented.
For me, this has a lot to do with structure. While we are filled in almost immediately as to the basic plot,we are subtly notified that the main character will not be the Japanese maiden but the neurotic and emotionally stunted American wife. Trapped in her delusions,I went from sympathetic to horrified as I lost sight of what was really going on.SL certainly keeps her readers guessing,and she is to be commended for daring to treat such sensitive topics as the motivations of altruism and the complex consequences of charity.
In the end though,I found I just did'nt trust or like any of the characters.I had a sticky icky feeling when I put down the book. This,mixed with the sense of gloom and doom that surrounds any thinking about the creation of weapons of destruction,added to my sense of despair. Nevertheless,I think this is an important book,about issues that do need to be considered,and it can hardly be expected that any story illuminating these themes be a pleasant read.
This statement,uttered by one of the major minor players near the end of the book,needs to be applied to the book itself. The truth is,this is a disturbing book on many levels.The subject matter,of course, is not an easy one,so that although it is fairly well written,and SL is able to transport us to the scene of the devestation so that our reactions are visceral,we are like the ghosts that haunt the Hiroshima Maiden,and our engagement is just as fragmented.
For me, this has a lot to do with structure. While we are filled in almost immediately as to the basic plot,we are subtly notified that the main character will not be the Japanese maiden but the neurotic and emotionally stunted American wife. Trapped in her delusions,I went from sympathetic to horrified as I lost sight of what was really going on.SL certainly keeps her readers guessing,and she is to be commended for daring to treat such sensitive topics as the motivations of altruism and the complex consequences of charity.
In the end though,I found I just did'nt trust or like any of the characters.I had a sticky icky feeling when I put down the book. This,mixed with the sense of gloom and doom that surrounds any thinking about the creation of weapons of destruction,added to my sense of despair. Nevertheless,I think this is an important book,about issues that do need to be considered,and it can hardly be expected that any story illuminating these themes be a pleasant read.
March 2, 2017
Shaena Lambert’s Radiance is a book from back in 2007, and I think I probably bought it on the recommendation of the late Kevin from Canada, a friend and blogger sorely missed. It’s a thought-provoking novel, the kind I really like.
The novel traces the story of Keiko, a ‘Hiroshima Maiden’ and her ‘house mother’ Daisy Lawrence, but it’s also a devastating exposé of the way ordinary people are used to serve political purposes, no matter the pain it causes. The Hiroshima Maidens were, in real life, Japanese girls with facial disfigurements caused by the atom bomb, who were brought to America for facial surgery to restore their appearance. Keiko stays with Daisy and her husband Walter, an ‘all-American family’ living in the quiet anonymity of the suburbs – while the Hiroshima Project committee organises the speaking tour that Keiko will undertake after her surgery as a poster girl for the nuclear disarmament movement. This is the period between the atom bomb and the hydrogen bomb and also the era of the Cold War: peace activists were urging an international ban on the development of nuclear weapons. But as Daisy soon finds out, Keiko’s calm, polite mask conceals a young woman too traumatised by survivor guilt to share the ambiguous truth of her memories.
Radiance is also a novel about national guilt.
To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2016/12/07/r...
The novel traces the story of Keiko, a ‘Hiroshima Maiden’ and her ‘house mother’ Daisy Lawrence, but it’s also a devastating exposé of the way ordinary people are used to serve political purposes, no matter the pain it causes. The Hiroshima Maidens were, in real life, Japanese girls with facial disfigurements caused by the atom bomb, who were brought to America for facial surgery to restore their appearance. Keiko stays with Daisy and her husband Walter, an ‘all-American family’ living in the quiet anonymity of the suburbs – while the Hiroshima Project committee organises the speaking tour that Keiko will undertake after her surgery as a poster girl for the nuclear disarmament movement. This is the period between the atom bomb and the hydrogen bomb and also the era of the Cold War: peace activists were urging an international ban on the development of nuclear weapons. But as Daisy soon finds out, Keiko’s calm, polite mask conceals a young woman too traumatised by survivor guilt to share the ambiguous truth of her memories.
Radiance is also a novel about national guilt.
To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2016/12/07/r...
May 2, 2009
What a clever insightful book. The early fifties in America is a scary time in this book. Perfect surfaces hiding dreadful events and experiences. Hiroshima experienced by a young girl is the initiating event.The 'ban the bomb' activism and cold war fear felt by the Americans piles on the stress. Elegantly written
July 30, 2011
I met Shaena Lambert, and was very impressed with her effort.
This engrossing novel's examination of the aftermath of the Hiroshima bombing is also a study in human manipulation.
A young Japanese woman, her face partially burned by radiation, takes advantage of the American family she stays with.
It's an original story; one worth pursuing.
This engrossing novel's examination of the aftermath of the Hiroshima bombing is also a study in human manipulation.
A young Japanese woman, her face partially burned by radiation, takes advantage of the American family she stays with.
It's an original story; one worth pursuing.
June 19, 2015
I didn't enjoy this book. I was waiting for it to get better but it just didn't. The themes of the story were quite deep, but just not from my error so probably couldn't fully appreciate at what the author was portraying in the characters. I think this is a story about Daisy rather than Keiko. Probably a good book club read.
November 2, 2008
Canadian author who lives in Vancouver. Book (fiction) is set in USA in 1952 and is about a young Hiroshima orphan from Japan who is brought to America for reconstructive surgery, but also as a poster child for the ban-the bomb movement. It's an interesting story and very well written
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August 5, 2011Canadian author Shaena Lambert gives a vivid description of Hiroshima survivor Keiko and her move to the U.S. to have reconstructive surgery to her face. Unfortunately the Americans are more interested in her memories and mindset than the surgery itself, and plague her with questions
August 5, 2013
A book of many parts - at times beautiful, at others heart-wrenching, and sometimes caustic. It was gripping - a previous reviewer stated that they were waiting for something to happen - I personally found plenty happening and plenty to explore. A recommended read.
June 8, 2011
it was better than i thought some parts were really funny and it was a fast read
July 28, 2011
Interesting story of a Hiroshima survivor who is brought to visit the West to have surgery, and to help serve the agenda of the anti-bomb group that sponsored her. Sept 07
July 29, 2012
Very disturbing book in it's honesty about the bomb's effect on Hiroshima and the personal tragedies it brought about.
December 21, 2014
I enjoyed this. It's a great novella.
December 13, 2015
well crafted novel, interesting themes
October 9, 2013
I picked it up thinking about the potential of this book. Unfortunately it didn't quite reach it
Displaying 1 - 29 of 29 reviews